Laparoscopy is noninvasive, nontraumatic surgery that involves visualizing the interior of the abdominal cavity using an illuminating optical instrument, a laparoscope, that is placed through a puncture orifice in the abdominal wall. Laparoscopic procedures have value as a diagnostic and operative tool for general surgery, as well as for gynecological surgery wherein such procedures are widely used. As physicians specializing in other fields have begun to recognize the advantages of laparoscopic surgery, the need for providing surgical tools especially adapted for general laparoscopic procedures has increased.
Instruments used during laparoscopic procedures are introduced into the abdominal cavity through a device known as a "trocar." A trocar comprises a cannula or trocar sleeve (a hollow sheath or sleeve with a central lumen) into which fits an obturator, a solid metal rod with an extremely sharp three-cornered tip used for puncturing the muscle. The obturator is withdrawn after the instrument has been pushed in the abdominal cavity. The trocar sleeve remains in the body wall throughout the surgical procedure and various instruments and surgical tools used during laparoscopic procedures are introduced in the abdomen through this sleeve. Trocars are available in different sizes to accommodate various instruments.
The advantages of laparoscopic surgery include: avoiding unnecessary general surgery by performing the procedure on an outpatient basis; providing the surgeon the opportunity for viewing intra-abdominal viscera without laparotomy, a large incision made in the abdominal wall; using small puncture wounds as opposed to large incisions, lessening the danger of traumatic injury to delicate intraabdominal tissues; determining incision sites for laparotomies when such incisions are appropriate; reducing both patient and insurer medical costs by shortening hospital stays; and reducing postoperative patient discomfort with recovery times measured in days as opposed to weeks.
Laparoscopic instruments for gall bladder surgery are known in the prior art. Existing laparoscopic instruments are inserted through the trocar sleeve and are used to grasp the tissue or organ to be removed from a patient's abdominal cavity. However, while the prior art devices are capable of extracting the tissue or organ from the abdominal cavity of a patient, their design has limited their use in certain applications.
One of the problems associated with existing instruments is that when dealing with soft tissue or organs, the tissue or organ can tear especially as the surgeon removes the tissue or organ through the trocar sleeve. If parts of tissue are left in the abdominal cavity or if the contents of an infected organ are released into the abdominal cavity, infection may result requiring the surgeon to use laparotomy to remove the tissue or organ. This would defeat the purpose and advantages of laparoscopic surgery enumerated above by necessitating a longer hospital stay for the patient, increased expense for the patient and his or her insurer, as well as a lengthy post-operative recovery period. A tissue and organ extractor that could be used to safely and completely extract tissue and organs from the abdominal cavity of a patient without tearing and that could be used in a wide variety of laparoscopic procedures would provide a decided advantage over the prior art.